Doesn’t this look good?
I must have inherited the baking gene in my family because I am good at it when I really want to bake and feel like it. My mom is more of a baker than she is a cook. But over the years her touch has kind of slipped away from her (sorry mom). I look at it as her losing the baking ability and I am suddenly gaining it. As all of you know, I just got into baking a few years ago. My brothers and everyone in my household will tell you that I was horrible at it growing up. In fact, I was bad at cooking and baking. I have so many stories to tell but I will limit it to about two
Story #1: When I was bout 16 year old, I called myself making spaghetti. I particularly felt like being in a culinary mood that day. So I ground the beef, boiled the noodles, added the sauce and made one big pot of spaghetti. Well I was browsing in the kitchen to look for something “extra” to go into the spaghetti to give it more flavor. I looked in the freezer and saw a big bag of peppers, which later I come to learn they were habanero peppers. I saw them and thought, this should do the trick. So I unthawed and cut about… hmmmmm….. 3 peppers (1 goes a long way) and added them to the pot of spaghetti, seeds and all. I proceeded to make my brothers a bowl of spaghetti and I was still in the kitchen. My younger brother (he was about 6 or 7 at the time) came in the kitchen from the dining room with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, waving it with his hand, jumping up and down frantically with big crocodile tears running down his face screaming, “IT’S HOT! IT’S HOT!” My mom immediately came out of the bedroom and tried to call him down by giving him water (we all know that was not a good idea) making it worse. I am laughing so hard my body hurts at his reaction. My mom tasted the spaghetti and said, “HOT DAMN NICOLE! S**T! WE CAN’T EAT THIS!” Moments later the other two brothers came in and handed the bowls to my mom while the youngest brother is still somewhere crying and sucking on a towel to get the heat to go away ( I am in tears now). To this day, my younger brother can’t stand spicy food.
Story #2: This is about my mom and when I knew her baking skills were slipping. For Thanksgiving my mom made a sweet potato pie. This is one of the many desserts I look forward to every year. I proceeded to go into the kitchen to cut me a slice, along with my step father and brothers. We all excitedly sliced the pie and put a slice on our plates. We stood around the kitchen talking about how good the pie is going to be and we all took a bite at the same time, while my mother was beginning to put the food away. My step father and I immediately made eye contact and frowned at how gross the pie was. I asked my mom, “Mom, why isn’t this pie sweet?” My mom said as she suddenly realized, ” I knew I forgot to put sugar in that pie”. We all threw away our slices of pie in the garbage and headed back into the living room disappointed.
So you see, getting to the point where I can make a beautiful, non-spicy, moist, pound cake with sugar is amazing! I hope I never get bored or tired of baking but I do look forward to sharing all of my secrets and what I know with my god-daughter, nieces, and nephews so they don’t experience the same thing.
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Lemon Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1/2 c. shortening
- 3 c. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 6 eggs, room temperature
- 1 c. milk, room temperature
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 2 tbsp. lemon zest
- 3 c. flour
- Glaze
- 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 1 tbsp. lemon zest
- pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp. milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 Degrees and grease a bundt pan and set aside.
- In a large bowl cream the butter and shortening together. Add the sugar a cup at a time so it can be well mixed. Add the salt and the eggs one at a time while blending with a handheld blender or using a standing mixer. Add the vanilla extract, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Fold in the flour a cup at a time until well blended and pour cake mix into the prepped bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes-1 hour or until toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.
- Once cake is finished allow to cool for 15 minutes and then flip cool rack with brown paper bags underneath and let completely cool at this point. You are going to recycle the excess glaze to put back onto the cake.
- Mix the entire glaze ingredients well and slowly pour over the bundt cake. Allow to set and turn cake onto a cake serving dish (I lifted it from the bottom with my hands quickly). Take the excess glaze from the paper bags and pour into a ramekin and pour the excess over top the rest of the cake. Let set and serve.
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